Speaking of Kazu Kibuishi, he has a nice post up examining what the contributors to the anthology FLIGHT #1 have done in the five years since it came out. At the time, the fresh new cartoonists within were hailed as a new force in the industry — and they have mostly gone on to very productive careers in animation and comics. Kazu didn’t include last names, so they’ve been added:

7 out of 19 have worked on completed films, either as production designers or story artists:
- Enrico Casarosa (Ratatouille, Up)
- Jake Parker (Horton Hears a Who!)
- Vera Brosgol (Coraline)
- Khang Le (Monster House)
- Chris Appelhans (Monster House, City of Ember, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox)
- Phil Craven (Kung Fu Panda, the forthcoming Kung Fu Panda 2)
- Clio Chiang (the forthcoming Princess and the Frog)

11 out of 19 have published one or more graphic novels (or will have a graphic novel published in 2010):

- Enrico Casarosa (The Venice Chronicles)
- Kazu Kibuishi (Daisy Kutter, Amulet, the forthcoming Copper collection)
- Jake Parker (Missile Mouse, forthcoming Scholastic GNs)
- Vera Brosgol (forthcoming First Second GN)
- Jen Wang (forthcoming First Second GN)
- Neil Babra (Hamlet)
- Bengal (Meka, Naja)
- Dylan Meconis (Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love, Bite Me!)
- Derek Kirk Kim (Good as Lily, The Eternal Smile)
- Rad Sechrist (Tom Sawyer)
- Kean Soo (Jellaby)

It’s certainly an impressive body of work — especially where comics for kids are concerned. But as Kazu notes, it perhaps wasn’t as much a movement as some very talented people who came together. And of the 12 who had webcomics running at the time, only 3 do now.

Melinda Gebbie, Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell and his wife Anne, out and about in Northampton, UK.
Via Campbell’s blog.:

With a new house to pay for, for the first time EVER, David Lapham is selling original art from STRAY BULLETS. If only we had a spare $500 lying around.

While linking to this site, we became aware of the fact that you can read the first four issues of STRAY BULLETS online for free. If you have not read this ’90s masterpiece of pain, trauma, violence, and degradation, this first four issues are, to fall back on an overused term, as good as it gets. (Above page not for sale; top page is.)

I was also not aware that a new STRAY BULLETS story had been published in Dark Horse’s recently released NOIR anthology. Now you know as much as we do.

Not much of a headline, really, but Scott Edelman posts of a visit to the Marvel legend with fellow Bullpenner Irene Vartanoff. It’s always great to see this inspiring lady.

Via Flog:

Saturday, Nov. 7, 6PM

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, Seattle, WA

Friday, Nov. 13, 7PM

Desert Island, Brooklyn, NY

Friday, Dec. 11

Ada Books, Providence, RI

[It’s been a big month for artist John Cassaday. The final issue of PLANETARY shipped after a years long delay, marking the end of a 10-year-long chapter of his career. Even more importantly, he’s currently in Los Angeles prepping to direct an episode of Dollhouse, the Joss Whedon-created show about Echo, an unwilling spy who is forced to use a technology of shifting personalities.

What does it take to direct dramatic TV? What’s it like to work with Joss Whedon? Is Cassaday leaving comics? Read on for the answers!]

The Beat: Directing? Why directing? How long has this been going on? Was this your childhood goal?

John Cassaday: Directing has always been half the dream for me, the other half being comics. Friends I had growing up would tell you exactly that. I always knew what I wanted, which was to be a visual storyteller…to tell those stories the way that I saw them… I believe there’s a tangible cross-section of thought here. When I read a comic script, I often see the scenes behind a camera—the shots, the movements and sound, the actors… At times, I’ve read screenplays and see the comic page. These things blend in my mind, so I do my best to shape them into what is needed. I believe in cinematic storytelling, whether it’s on a comic page or on film.
(more…)

R U sick of SPX reports? How can you be when they are so full of “laughing and loving” (as Dustin Harbin put it) and comics and joy and happiness? Seriously, is there any other show that gets this level of treasured memories and cute goings on? AND DID WE MENTION GREAT COMICS? If you are not inured to enthusiasm, Colleen AF Venable has yet another report, this one covering everything you need to know about beards and karaoke and…THE SILVER DINER. JESUS H FRAKING JEHOSHAPHAT. Maybe SPX is not such a love-in. While I was STARVING MY ASS OFF treasuring every crumb of a cold stale Power Bar, everyone else was eating pancakes and syrup and warm runny eggs and…deep breath. It’s okay. Anyway…WOMEN WITH FELT BEARDS ARE THE NEW SHIRTLESS DEAN HASPIEL. Think about it.

Have you ever wanted to just ditch it all and go on tour for a few weeks? If adult responsibilities are preventing you fro doing just this, perhaps The Voyages of The Grimace, the tale of MK Reed, Liz Baillie and Ken Dahl in a car for a few weeks, will be a welcome (or warning) substitute.

It’s been an astonishing year in graphic novels, but…we’re not done yet. Comicmix has the goods on what may be the most amazing book of the year, LOVERBOY, by Dondi creator Irwin Hasen.

Loverboy is the risqué, romantic escapade story of a short bachelor, who adores tall, women. The double-breasted suit wearing man-about-town seeks psychiatric insight to his tendencies in this humorous new graphic novel by award winning Dondi cartoonist, Irwin Hasen. Also includes a major biography of the noted cartoonist, and is filled throughout with Hasen’s famous humor.

Hasen is 91, so…he must have a good memory.

Did we post the John Porcellino tour dates before? Twice is better than never. He IS coming to a store near you.

Tues. Sept. 29, 2009; 7-9 PM - Brooklyn, NY
Desert Island
540 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 388-5087
www.desertislandbrooklyn.com

Weds. Sept. 30, 2009; 7PM - Somerville, MA
Hub Comics
19 Bow Street, Somerville, MA 02143
(617) 718-0987
www.hubcomics.com

Tues. Oct. 6, 2009; 7PM - Montreal QC
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly,
211 Rue Bernard Ouest, Montreal, QC H2T 2K5
(514) 279-2221
www.drawnandquarterly.com/211bernard

Weds. Oct. 7, 2009; 7 PM - Toronto, ON
The Beguiling
601 Markham Street, Toronto, ON, M6G 2L7
(416) 533-9168
www.beguiling.com

Fri. Oct. 9, 2009; 7-9 PM - Ann Arbor MI
Vault of Midnight
219 S Main St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 998-1413
www.vaultofmidnight.com
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Sat. Oct. 10, 2009; Noon-2 PM - Dearborn MI
Green Brain
13210 Michigan Ave., Dearborn, MI 48126
(313) 582-9444
www.greenbrain.biz

Sat. Oct. 10, 2009; 7 PM - Cleveland OH
Visible Voice
1023 Kenilworth, Cleveland, OH 44113
(216) 961-0084
www.visiblevoicebooks.com
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Mon. Oct. 12, 2009; 7PM - Columbus OH
Wholly Craft
3169 N. High St., Columbus, OH 43202
(614) 447-3445
www.whollycraft.net
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Tues. Oct. 13, 2009; 6-9 PM - Bloomington IN
Boxcar Books
408 E. 6th St. Bloomington, IN 47408
(812) 339-8710
www.boxcarbooks.org
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Weds. Oct. 14, 2009; 5-7 PM - St. Louis MO
Star Clipper
6392 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63130
Phone: 314.725.9110
www.starclipper.com
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Fri. Oct. 16, 2009; 7PM - Chicago IL
Quimby’s
1854 W. North Ave., Chicago, IL 60622
(773) 342-0910
www.quimbys.com
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Tues. Oct. 20, 2009; 12:15 PM - Palatine IL
Harper College
Building I, Rm. 115
1200 W. Algonquin Rd, Palatine, IL 60067
(847) 925-6000 x2389
www.harpercollege.edu
Open to the Public!

Thurs. Oct 22, 2009; 7 PM - Madison WI
Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
426 W. Gilman Street, Madison, WI 53703
(608)257-6050
www.rainbowbookstore.org
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Fri. Oct. 23, 2009; 7PM - Iowa City IA
White Rabbit
109 S Linn St., Iowa City, IA 52240-1803
(319) 358-9557
www.whiterabbitgallery.com
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Sat. Oct. 24, 2009; 5-7 PM - Minneapolis MN
Big Brain Comics (w/ Reception following at West Bank Social Club?)
1027 Washington Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55415
(612) 338-4390
www.bigbraincomics.com
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music), and Zak Sally

Fri. Oct. 30, 2009; 6-9 PM - Lawrence KS
Wonder Fair
803 Massachusetts St, Lawrence KS 66044
(406) 360-5875
www.wonderfair.com
w/ Patrick Porter (acoustic music)

Technorati Tags: puppy

While Japan mourns the creator of Shin-chan, Yoshito Usui, some rather heartbreaking details are emerging about his death on September 11th. Usui-sensei fell to his death while out hiking, and there’s a cautionary tale for all:
A Futabasha official said the last picture on the broken digital camera found near Usui’s body was one peering down a steep cliff.

“As he was full of curiosity, we think he fell off at the moment he took the picture,” the official told reporters.

Crumb’s GENESIS. ASTERIOS POLYP. Joe Sacco’s NOTES FROM GAZA. The ALEC collection. 2009 has seen more than its share of graphic novels that change how we look at the medium. But none of those books is a beautiful painted miniseries about a kitty and some puppies that fight supernatural menaces. No, that book is BEASTS OF BURDEN by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, and WE NEED THIS BOOK. These two fine creators will be making various appearances to promote this book over the next few days, starting TONIGHT! Here’s the schedule:

Friday Sept 11th
Evan Dorkin
Modern Myths 7th Anniversary Party
Northampton, MA
6-9
http://www.modern-myths.com/

Saturday Sept 12th
Evan Dorkin
Modern Myths
Northampton, MA
1-3
http://www.modern-myths.com/

Wednesday Sept 16th
Jill Thompson and Evan Dorkin/Beasts of Burden #1 release party
Comic Book Jones
Staten Island, NY
6-9 pm
http://www.comicbookjones.net/events.htm

Saturday Sept 19th
Jill Thompson and Evan Dorkin/Beasts of Burden #1 release party
Bergen Street Comics
Brooklyn, NY
6-closing
http://bergenstreetcomics.com/dev/?page_id=12

This week’s New Yorker contains many things comics … a cover by Ivan Brunetti, a print ad for the Vertigo Crime Line (props to DC for outside-the-box marketing) and a story on HBO’s upcoming series Bored to Death in Brooklyn. The show is notable because it is written by sometimes comics scripter Jonathan Ames, and the cast includes characters based on some of Ames’ friends…including one based on his THE ALCOHOLIC collaborator, Dean Haspiel, portrayed by comic (of the other kind) Zack Galifianakis.

Galifianakis, who plays a comic-book artist named Ray, said, “I bike to the set every day.” He was walking a bit stiffly, and he reached down to rub his right knee.

“What happened to your knee?” Thirlby asked.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Galifianakis said. “It just slowly started getting painful and then more painful.”

“You need to go to a doctor,” Thirlby said.

Strange. Unknown, perhaps to the writer, or maybe even Galifianakis, the REAL Haspiel sustained a broken knee many years ago and walks with a bit of a limp. Even more oddly, the story continues…

The next scene was outside Ralph’s Meat Corp.: Schwartzman is running down the street with a limping Galifianakis (his knee injury had to be written into the script), and they bump into Thirlby.

Odd. Is this a reverse King Mob/Grant Morrison-like case of real life spilling into the fictional? Will Galifianakis soon start taking off his shirt at parties and talking about webcomics? Developing.

Artist Chris Weston is no stranger to mayhem, having drawn THE FILTH, THE TWELVE, and many more beloved comics classics. Doubtless the ninja training of working with Grant Morrison and JMS has honed his senses into the lightning fast reflexes he needed to actually solve a crime! After witnessing a robbery at his local bank, Weston raced home to sketch the dastardly perp. The rest:

I took my drawings round to the local cop-shop. Finding it full of your usual oiks and ne’er-do-wells, I was reluctant to broadcast my status as as a grass (yes I’m aware of the irony of that last statement given that I’m now announcing my deeds to the world on a blog)… so I gingerly approached the desk and whispered “I’d like to report a serious crime…”. The copper patiently asked for some more details, so I mouthed “The bank robbery …”. This got his attention and he asked me if I was a witness.

“I’m more than a witness!” I blurted, “Check these out!”

With the help of Weston’s artistic fidelity, the felon was nabbed and justice restored. All in a day’s work for…Comic Book Artist Man.

Interviews with folks who design characters for film, animation, video games and comics. For instance, Paul Linsley (his take on the Turtles, above.)

What goes through my mind?… “Okay Paul, we need a completely original character, that’s fun and appealing, but complex, yet simple, and like nothing we’ve ever seen before.” … Panic. Anxiety. A dim bulb of an idea. Start moving the pencil, Paul. You can do this. Just start moving your pencil. Man, that looks like crap. Wait look at some of your favorites in your inspiration folder. Awwww.. Carter Goodrich! Scott Morse! Yess… Clair Wendling Yes yessss… Maybe a little Joe Sorren… Yes More? Why not some Francisco Herrera? Yess. Some Travis Charest. No, wait too stiff! I know, some Nate Wragg, lightly peppered with Matt Nolte. Perfect. Now pick up the pencil and draw again. CURSES!!! Then I go on to take some cheap stabs at a doodle and give it some life. It’s like there is riot of bad drawings clamoring to escape your mind through the pencil, and every time you pick one up, those have to be released first before you begin to find the magic. Of course I go through the basic elements of design: circle, square, triangle, red, yellow, blue. Is this an antagonist/protagonist? If I have the luxury (depending on the project) I’ll go into the screenplay and try to understand their history, inner-conflict and the roll they play in the story.

Scott Edelman reports on how the great lady spent her 80th.

Can you believe that none of the marquee comics blogs have a feature called Comics 101? That was low-hanging fruit. Over at Robot 6, Chris Mautner remedies that, inaugurating the new feature with a look at Los Bros Hernandez:

In the early 1980s, Love and Rockets was one of the seminal titles, along with books like Cerebus and American Flagg, in shaping the sensibilities of the nascent indie scene. Their influence since then has been enormous, both in the indie world and the mainstream (writer Matt Fraction cites Gilbert Hernandez as a strong influence). Their jump-cut style, which forces the reader to connect the narrative dots beetween the panels, their blend of genres (science fiction, realism, romance), their use of magical realism all helped show that not only could comic be serious literature, but how to achieve such a goal.

Meltdown has video of the Grant Morrison/Clive Barker summit. Marz Richards provides a transcript at the same link.

Our post spotlighting a LIFE magazine archive of photos of 1950 cartoonists drawing on swimsuit models, got lots and lots of attention, but no one seemed to know if the photos had ever appeared in print.

Well, Library of American Comics editor Dean Mullaney has stepped in to solve at least part of the mystery. A 1951 Jan/Feb issue of Gala Magazine ran several of the pictures, including Bil Holman and George Wunder, above and Otto Soglow, below. Gala Magazine was, Mullaney explains, “a low-budget pin-up/model mag (as opposed to a nudie mag), with cheap printing.” Photos of girls in bathing suits and so on were a staple.

The caption reveals that the pretext for the event was a test of waterproof ink (we suspected it has something to do with pens.) Hence the cartoonists dousing the ladies with water later on. Because nothing says waterproof like Smokey Stover and girls in bathing suits.

BTW, Paul Tobin’s reconstruction of the event is a must read.

Also, it’s a pretty good bet that Eleanor Roosevelt wasn’t really there.

Jim McLauchlin at the Hero Initiative writes to say that Gene Colan is back in the hospital:

Gene Colan’s wife Adrienne informs us that Gene was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York early in the morning on Monday, Aug. 10 by ambulance.

All is looking okay, and best guess is that Gene might be laid up in hospital for a few days. In fact, steady improvement could get him home by late Wednesday-early Thursday. He has pneumonia in his right lung behind his heart, and possibility of infection of some fluids. Some Encephalopathy-related difficulties may be going on, too.

As positive vibes are always a nice tonic, cards, letters and well-wishes are deeply appreciated, and can be sent to:
Gene Colan
2240 Burnett Street, #5D
Brooklyn, New York 11229

One can only guess at what the occasion for this LIFE Magazine photo shoot was, but it must have been long remembered in the halls of NCS. Apparently a bunch of strip cartoonists were brought out to draw on the bathing suits of a bunch of comely young models. All that’s missing is a bunch of those cartoon sweat drops (”plewds”) surrounding the heads of these guys as they try to get a ballpoint pen to draw over the nylon-encased curves of the models’ “hites.”

Behold, Ernie Bushmiller.

Oh, Alfred Andriola! You didn’t!!

(more…)

One fewer cartoonist is (potentially) gainfully employed today, after the Senate questioned a Treasury plan to hire a cartoonist. The Treasury’s Bureau of Public Debt hoped that witty cartoons and seminars on humor would cheer up their workers, who are toiling to oversee the nations $1.2 trillion debt.

“Our training staff felt that at a time when employees are working extra hours, it might have been helpful,” said Kim Treat, a spokesman for the bureau.

But the effort was canceled because it had become “more of a distraction than an opportunity,” he said.

The plan was scuttled when the office of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. questioned the move, Dorgan wrote, in part, “Of all the agencies, the Bureau of Public Debt should know that there is very little that is funny about today’s economic conditions.”

Truly debt is no laughing matter and we must turn back to the private sector to find jobs for the nation’s ink slingers.

(Caricature of Dornan by Kerry Waghorn.)

NOTE: Eagle-eyed Steven Stahl points out the nation’s debt is actually $11.66 trillion. The $1.2 trillion figure is from the AP.

Posted by Evie

The L.A. Times reports that Heinz Edelmann, best known for his work as art director of the 1968 Beatles film “Yellow Submarine,” died last week at a hospital in Stuttgart, Germany. He also designed the cover for the German edition of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, among many other books. He was 75.

He was also living proof that you don’t need drugs to be an awesome surrealist:

“I had never taken any drugs,” the artist said in a 2004 interview with the British magazine Design Week. “I’m a conservative, working-class person who sticks to booze . . . so I just knew about the psychedelic experience. . . . I guessed what it was.”

So remember that, aspiring cartoonists: stick to booze.

I can’t seem to get video embedding to work, but here’s “When I’m 64″ from “Yellow Submarine,” enjoy.

Variety reports that a bunch of new comic book movie deals are on their way, and first out of the gate is Terry Moore’s SF tale ECHO, which has been acquired in a six figure deal by Lloyd Levin, who produced WATCHMEN.

According to the piece while comic book movies remain incredibly popular, studios are looking increasingly to non-superhero fare.